Finding Color Inspiration
As you may have guessed from my Fabric Palette Friday posts, I love color. I love pulling colors together in different combinations, I love studying color theory, I love finding the perfect fabric combinations to pull the right color scheme together. I’m planning a whole series of posts on color that I’m really excited about, but today, I wanted to start with a few ideas for finding color inspiration. So many quilters (new and old alike) struggle with putting together palettes or finding color schemes that work well together. We’ll get into the weeds of color theory later, but if you’re looking for someone with a good eye to give you ideas you can trust, there are plenty of places to go (thank you, Internet!). (This list doesn’t even touch on all the great fabric stores offering all kinds of fabric-bundle inspiration out there. We’re stepping outside the fabric box so you can take these ideas and step back into it.)
If you’ve been in the game for much time at all, you’re probably familiar with Design Seeds. Created by Jessica Colaluca, Design Seeds started as a website and then expanded onto Instagram. While Jessica no longer adds new palettes to the website, it remains as an archive of years of ideas that you can search by color and theme. Jessica finds a great stock photo and then draws the main colors out of it to create a palette (a great starter idea for those looking to create their own palettes as well). I tend to pin a lot of Design Seeds palettes for future reference, but these two were calling to me recently with their calming spring vibes. She calls the left one Color Dew, and the right is Brodhead Hues.
Color Dew color palette. Photo courtesy of Design Seeds (Jessica Colaluca, Creator).
Brodhead Hues color palette. Photo courtesy of Design Seeds (Jessica Colaluca, Creator).
Jessica has since moved on from Design Seeds to create another site called HI HUES, which follows a similar cue but with often simpler photos and brighter palettes (overall). How fun is this one she calls Sugared Spectrum No. 1? The full list of colors is included in each post (but not in the image, unlike Design Seeds), so click through for more.
Sugared Spectrum no. 1 color palette inspiration by HI HUES. (Click image for original post showing full palette.)
On Instagram, I find color inspiration from a variety of accounts and tags. Many times they have nothing to do with actually creating a palette; they’re just lovely to look at. One of my absolute favorite “color” accounts is Arlos Cookies (@arloscookies). As you might have guessed, Luna makes and decorates cookies, but she has a fabulous color sense and uses a wide variety of palettes. She’s even created an icing color guide on her website for fellow bakers. This green and blue palette of hexie cookies (how is this woman not a quilter?!) is a personal favorite.
Green and blue cookie frosting color palette. Photo courtesy of Luna of Arlos Cookies (@arloscookies).
Or consider following the hashtag #npscolorforecasting. People posting to the tag use photos of America’s national parks that they then turn into color palettes. Brooke and Laura of @bybeaandelle have posted some of my favorite images/palettes, including this one of Crater Lake National Park.
Crater Lake NPS Color Forecasting color palette. Photo courtesy of Brooke and Laura of @bybeaandelle.
Of course, these are only the tip of the iceberg. Check out these other hashtags and accounts to follow on Instagram for tons of non-fabric color inspiration:
@pantone (most of Pantone’s posts are a single color or maybe two, but occasionally they’ll post larger palettes like this beauty)
@fredrikthunberg (architecture palettes!)
@chris.crossen (be inspired by watercolor)
@caroline_south (upcycling and found objects)
